Saturday 5 October 2019, 7.30pm
The evening will bring two artists at Cafe OTO: Kim Ku Lim and his daughter, Jessica Kim. It is their first collaborative stage, presenting both Kim Ku Lim’s early performances from the 70s to recent, and as well as, Jessica Kim’s new piece that reflects her independent practice, in London.
In 1970, Kim Ku Lim directed the musical happening ‘Sex on the Piano’ by Nam June Paik at the 1st Seoul International Contemporary Music Festival. The couple created a sound work when their feet accidentally touched the keyboard. For the first time, in 49 years, this event will be reenacted, in the similar course, there will be two performers directed by Kim Ku Lim. Followed by another significant work in Kim’s artistic career, ‘The Poet and Nail’, which was first announced in 1981 at Space Theatre, Seoul, South Korea, will be reinterpreted, named, ‘Untitled’, as a collaborative happening with his daughter. Moreover, they will join together to extend the event further with both their more recent pieces that will yield a very unique language to the two very distinct and independent artists.
PROGRAMME
Kim Kulim (b. 1936, South Korea), known as Korea’s first avant-garde artist, has worked in film, music, performance, land art, often stretching the limits of a given medium. In Korea, he held his first solo exhibition in 1958 and soon expanded his artistic practice beyond painting. For his artistic “deconstructions” he often used burned plastics, vinyl, and metal bits alongside oil paint. He incorporated ready-made objects in his painted canvases, created installation art, and staged performances. He played a leading part in several artist collectives (Painting 68, A.G. Group, The Fourth Group) and brought many firsts to the Korean art world. He filmed Korea’s first experimental movies Munmyeong, Yeoja, Don (Civilization, Woman, Money, 1969); and 1/24 (Cho) ui Uimi (The Meaning of 1/24 Second, 1969), staged the nation’s first body painting performance, initiated the first Korean mail art Maeseu Midieo ui Yumul (The Relics of Mass Media, 1969), and was responsible for Korea’s first examples of land art Chujeog e Hyeonsang Eseo (From Phenomenon to Traces, 1970).
Jessica Hyunjin Kim (b.1994, U.S.A), is a South Korean multi-media artist currently based in London. Often using traditional materials, she explores the relationship and limitations of existence in space and the presence of in between-ness, that which often fails or collapses clear identification of both subject and object. She refers to ‘blurred existence’, but that is still real and regarded as an other.
One of her most recent project is a series entitled, <SPACE MUSIC>, which was composed to add movement of the body in order to play gaps and distance in between notes.
